Litmus
Litmus is the sixth episode of the 2004 TV series Battlestar Galactica and aired during the show's first season. Plot Teaser It is sixteen days since the Fall of the Twelve Colonies. The Scorpia Traveller lands in Galactica s hangar deck, and its occupants disembark. A Marine Corporal examines each civilian's identification. One man is cleared and begins walking through the crowded corridor which the Master-at-Arms, Sgt. Hadrian has also just passed. He joins a line of other civilians. Elsewhere, Deck Chief Galen Tyrol is led by Specialist Cally Henderson to an empty room to continue his relationship with Lt. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, who snuck through a hatchway on C Causeway to get there a different, equally un-suspicious route. The man stops following the line of civilians and turns down a different corridor. Col. Saul Tigh takes note of the man, and nonchalantly picks up a phone, calling for Marines to meet him at the "midpoint promenade deck causeway, C level" and approach from aft. Cmdr. William Adama also enters the causeway and takes note of the man. Following the man, he shouts out "Doral". The man turns around, revealing he is in fact a Cylon - a Number Five model - and exactly resembles Aaron Doral, the man left behind on Ragnar Anchorage. The man reveals he is wearing a suicide vest and detonates it. Adama rushes to the vest, hoping to disarm it, but Tigh pushes him to the floor. Act 1 On Galactica s operational sickbay in the morning, Chief Medical Officer Major Cottle briefs Adama on the situation. Five people are death and thirteen more are in a serious condition. Adama and Tigh are forced to reveal the existence of Humanoid Cylons to Hadrian so she can lead an investigation into how he got on the ship with explosives. Due to repeated security flaws since the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, Hadrian insists on an independent tribunal; a free hand in interrogations outside of Command review, and public disclosure to aide in the search for any identical copies of Aaron Doral in the fleet. Adama gives her the first two, and takes the second under advisement, alerting President Laura Roslin to it; she warns him that the situation is serious enough that someone will have to be found accountable for the security issues. On Caprica, the Caprica-Sharon watches Lt. Karl "Helo" Agathon from the rooftops along with a Five and Six. He is part of an experiment to see if he is willing to stay with her after her disappearance at the restaurant. If he decides to leave her behind, he will head south to head to a space port and be shot dead by Centurions. If he heads north to known Cylon positions, it will mean he is trying to rescue her and will be allowed to escape. Meanwhile, Tyrol catches Spc. Cally Henderson, Spc. Socinus and Spc. James "Jammer" Lyman creating a distillery in the tool room. Rather than report their actions, he decides to help them perfect it. When the others return to the deck, the Master-at-Arms begins interviewing them about their whereabouts at the time of the bombing. Asking Specialist Henderson first, she says she was reading a book at the time of the bombing. Asked where Tyrol was, she says she saw him on deck when she left. Jammer says he was watching a pre-recorded Pyramid game in the mess hall, and Tyrol was around. Socinus says he was working on the hanger deck and Tyrol arrived later to repair a Viper. Roslin appoints the independent tribunal, and reveals the truth about the Humanoid Cylons, revealing the photos of Aaron Doral and Leoben Conoy's body should their copies be in the fleet. The deck crew are shocked by the reveal which, until then, was only a baseless rumour spread around by Boomer's ECO, Lt. Alex "Crashdown" Quartararo, though Tyrol turns straight to Boomer when he hears the report. Hadrian returns to the deck with a group of Marines, and has Boomer and Tyrol brought in for questioning, much to the protest of their workfriends. Boomer is questioned in front of the tribunal over her location - her rack, asleep. She is asked if she engaged in a relationship with Tyrol against military regulations, but she insists they broke up after being ordered to. She is then asked for Tyrol's location at the time of the bombing, which she does not know. Tyrol is then brought in for his own line of questioning. He confirms he was on watch at the time of the bombing and reported nothing in his log. He is asked if the hatch on Causeway C was open while he was on watch; Hadrian found it open during the investigation, which would have given quick access for the Cylon agent to separate himself from the civilian group and head to the small arms locker a Marine guard was killed by. The room however requires a passcode to enter, which would suggest an accomplice was involved. Tyrol insists that the passcode is well known as many crewmembers have access to it; he deflects the line of questioning back to Hadrian after constructing a hypothetical scenario where the Marine guard was forced to open the locker before his murder, which would become Hadrian's responsibility. Rather than answer, Hadrian asks if Boomer left the hatchway open, which he shouldn't know given his previous claim he was asleep in his rack. Finally, Hadrian asks him to explain the conflicting reports given by his deck hands to his whereabouts. Refusing to answer, he attempts to exercise his right to withhold incriminating answers as per the 23rd Article of Colonization. Back on the deck, the deckhands begin arguing over why Tyrol was detained; Jammer is affected by the disclosure on Humanoid Cylons, and is willing to believe Tyrol is a Cylon agent. The tribunal moves on to interrogating Socinus who was supposed to be on watch with Tyrol at the time of the bombing and claimed to have seen him work on a Viper. Hearing Tyrol's testimony, he changes his story to defend his senior. To explain the discrepancy, he says he left his post to smoke and eat food in the galley, and adds to his story to include going through Causeway C and leaving the door open. His attempt to defend Tyrol's whereabouts makes him the fall. On Caprica, Helo turns south, to head to the space port but, to the surprise of Caprica-Sharon and her Five and Six friends, decides to head north to free her. They make preparations for her "rescue". As night falls, the Five and Six take turns beating and kicking her to make it look convincing she was captured. On Galactica s sickbay, Dr. Gaius Baltar pays Lt. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace a visit, as she is still recovering from her broken leg. She does not care for his flirting this time, but has the opportunity to give him her theory on the Cylon bomber's motives: Baltar's secret project - rumoured to be a Cylon Detector - was on C-deck, so the bomber would have blown up his lab had he not been caught is disturbed by the revelation and leaves the room, pursued by the Messenger Six. He doesn't understand why he is at risk of Cylon assassination if he is doing what she wants, but she reminds him that the Cylons do not know she exists. He threatens to destroy the Cylon Detector and blame it on Cylons to save his life, but is throttled by her. Adama is handed the findings of the tribunal, which is also sent to Roslin. In a call with her, he expresses his distrust at the findings, which have found Socinus guilty of conspiracy with the Cylons to commit acts of sabotage. Roslin is more interested in Tyrol. Adama is interrupted by a Marine party, who have orders to take him in for questioning as well. On Caprica, dusk is approaching. Helo becomes suspicious about a warehouse compound and goes into to investigate it. There he finds a Centurion dragging the unconscious Caprica-Sharon on the level below him. The Centurion turns around and approaches him from behind, knocking him over. The Centurion takes its time to arm its machine guns, but Helo has more than enough time to destroy it. Freeing Caprica-Sharon, he shoulders her out of the warehouse. At the tribunal, Adama is asked why he refused to go public as to the existence of Humanoid Cylons, and why he refused to inform his own security, which he explains was due to not knowing who to trust. He is asked if the bombing could have been prevented had the security team been aware of Doral being a Cylon, which he dismisses as speculation. He is asked if he believes Cylons were responsible for the water tank bombing, which he agrees. He is asked if he believes there are Cylons on the ship, which he also agrees. He is asked if he allowed Tyrol and Boomer's relationship to go ahead, allowing two suspected Cylon accomplices to collude in secret. Adama rejects the entire tribunal as a witch hunt and orders it to be shut down. When he tries to leave, Hadrian orders the Corporal-of-the-Guard to restrain him for further questioning. Adama likewise orders her to be confined to her quarters. The Corporal-of-the-Guard follows Adama's order, and the tribunal is called to an end. Roslin reports on the amended tribunal findings on a live wireless broadcast. She reports that the Cylon was found to have obtained explosives after making his way through the hatch on Causeway C, left open by the negligence of Socinus, who further confessed to lying under oath and dereliction of duty at a time of war and is stripped of his rank and confined to the brig. Tyrol makes his way to Adama's quarters, hoping he will let Socinus out by explaining he lied to protect him for his relationship with Boomer. Adama is well aware Socinus is probably innocent of the charge, but it doesn't matter - Tyrol's actions meant a gap in the chain of command, and Socinus' whereabouts cannot be corroborated, and he deserves to be in the brig for lying under oath. Because of Tyrol's irreplaceable skills, he cannot be sent to the brig, and Adama hopes he will be punished psychologically in knowing he has ruined a friend's life over it. Tyrol immediately breaks up with Boomer because of the experience. Before lying, he asks if she left the hatch open, but she fails to answer. Production *Story By: :Teleplay By: Jeff Vlaming *Directed by: Rod Hardy Guest stars * Alonso Oyarzun as Socinus * Nicki Cryne as Cally * Bodie Olmos as Constanza/Hot Dog * Matthew Bennett as Doral * Christina Schild as Playa Kohn * Raahul Sinah as Kimmit * Shaw Madson as Marine Corporal * Nimet Kaili as Candace Myson-Tribunal * Biski Guagushe as Reporter #1 * Morris Chapdelaine as Reporter #2 Trivia Sources External links * *Litmus on IMDb Category:Season 1 episodes